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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22810555">The Soul of The White Bird</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepestfathoms/pseuds/deepestfathoms'>deepestfathoms</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Six - Marlow/Moss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Aragon is a mama at heart, Bar Room Brawl, Blood, Gen, Head Injury, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Joan is lonely, Loneliness, Mamagon, Stitches, Tour!verse, UK Tour, Violence, the title is the name of a song from Lizzie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:08:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,916</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22810555</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepestfathoms/pseuds/deepestfathoms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Aragon finds the show’s MD collapsed in the bathroom with a cut on her head, she has to be the one to bring her to the hospital. For some reason, she isn’t as annoyed as she thought she would be.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Soul of The White Bird</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fanfic is set in the UK Tour Universe! So Aragon and Joan would not look/act like as they do in West End- they’re different here!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey, queens,” The music director’s slurred, croaking voice resonates in each of the queen’s earpieces. “You-you guys are doing great, but…I’m gonna get Michelle to come- to come play the rest of the show for me. I-I don’t f-feel too good. I-I think I’m- I’m gonna- I… I’m sorry.”</p><p>—————</p><p>The soft tune of smooth jazz played through the underground café. The place was almost empty aside from the woman at the counter and a lone customer near the corner.</p><p>The third addition to the café entered: a scrawny, thin little thing with hair so white it doesn’t even seem blonde anymore. Any skin that could be seen was grimy and pale. Her dark brown eyes were heavy with bags from lack of sleep. She’s wearing some basic clothes, but they looked a little too big on her.</p><p>“Coffee,” She croaked to the lady behind the counter.</p><p>The worker nods, retreating behind a plain black door. Upon returning, the girl has taken up a seat on one of the barstools, slumped partway over the countertop. Her eyes drift restlessly over the scars on the counter’s tarnished surface. She looks up when a cup and saucer is set in front of her, trailing steam. It smells ordinary.</p><p>Leaning over the cup to let the whorls invade her lungs, Joan hums vaguely. Making any noise will hurt, but the steam itself feels kind of nice.</p><p>In an effort to be polite, Joan smiles thinly. Out of the corner of her eye, she’s watching the other customer. Brown-haired, slumped over in the seat with its head down, humming to itself.</p><p>When she looked up again, the lady was gone. She shivered and left some money on the counter and her coffee untouched. She slid out of the stool and just stood aimlessly at the bar. Her head is starting to hurt. The fear deep within her bubbles up and up and up.</p><p>What the hell was she doing? Did she think being here was going to do some good for her? So she could brag about how she went out to a near-barren underground café instead of staying at the theater working?</p><p>(She was missing so much work)</p><p>This wasn’t going to make the others want to be around her again. This wasn’t going to make them like her.</p><p>Sighing, she turned to leave, and that’s when her brittle wrists were grabbed.</p><p>“How rude,” Said the customer from the corner. “Leaving without saying hello.”</p><p>Joan is too shocked to voice her distress. Her eyes are wide and bulging, but she tries to struggle, not wanting to give in this easily (not again).</p><p>Joan twists her arms and yanked backwards, slipping free. She glares at the man before her.</p><p>“Do you greet everyone like that?” The man asked, obviously trying to set her off again.</p><p>It did.</p><p>Joan, feeling liquid fire burning through her veins, lunges forward to attack, using a stool as her weapon of choice.</p><p>This is what she should have done in her past life- fight, not sit by and let some entitled, piece of shit man beat her to pieces.</p><p>But then she saw the gleam of a pipe and heard the ugly, familiar sound of bones cracking. Something connected with her chest; she was on the ground, little starbursts flitting in and out of her vision.</p><p>“Hurts, doesn’t it?”</p><p>He grabbed her by the head and hooks his dirty fingers in the red hot crevice on the back of her skull, making his victim whine in pain.</p><p>“It was just trying to enjoy a drink, and then you come along and ruin my break. That’s all you do, really. I can tell.”</p><p>He shakes her head wildly for a moment before letting go, watching her slump to the ground.</p><p>Joan feels dazed. Her right ear was ringing painfully, while the other leaked blood. She’s crying, maybe. Clawing at the floorboards, writhing around like she’s trying to wiggle out of her own skin. She’s soon gasping and wheezing in the midst of pain. Red bubbles from her lips and she chokes on her struggle. It makes the man laugh.</p><p>“Go ahead,” He taunted. “Bleed out and die, see if it changes anything. Let’s see if it makes anyone care. When you get back, the world will still be horrible.“</p><p>Joan whimpered pathetically. A boot comes down to press on her ribs with full weight. She feels something in her chest crack and fracture.</p><p>“<em>You are garbage.</em>”</p><p>The man’s boot connected to Joan’s chin with a crunch. It made everything go dark for a moment. He was stepping on her tiny, frail body, digging his heel in. He only stops when he sees her eyes shutting.</p><p>“Hey, stay with me! I’m not done having fun with y- What is it now?”</p><p>There’s a garbled, snapping voice.</p><p>“Okay! Okay! Fine!”</p><p>Due to the extent of her injuries, it’s a little difficult to focus on what’s going on around her, but she knows she’s being dragged to the front room where the staircase leading up to the street was.</p><p>“You’re lucky,” Said the man.</p><p>He returns to the inside of the café, shutting the door and leaving Joan alone in that little room.</p><p>Inhaling is painful. Joan winces and shuts her eyes again, but it makes no difference.</p><p>————</p><p>The chilled tile of the theater bathroom floor bites Joan to the bone. She presses her aching head to it, willing the intense pain radiating throughout her skull to go away if she added enough pressure.</p><p>It didn’t.</p><p>A moan of pain bubbles up from her lips. She feels sick, she feels so sick, but the migraine is worse. Her head is being bashed open- someone is digging their hands into a crack down her scalp and pulling her head apart. It splits like a watermelon, chunks of flesh and shards of bone spewing up and out in a wondrous fountain of gore. The hands pick apart her brain, pulling out and everything and everything and <em>everything</em> until her brain is no more and the remainder of her head becomes a bowl of stew of mushed matter and sludge and slush that sloshes in its confinement. The goop splashes up over the edges of her fragmented, frayed cheeks, streaming like gory tears down to her chin, going <em>drip, drip, drip</em> onto the tile below. The fingers stir the mess and her orifices began to leak with the mushy stuff, oozing out from her nose and barely-intact-ears and mouth.</p><p>Then, she coughs and the hands rip out, becoming barbed claws that shred the flesh they pass. The cough becomes a whine and fresh tears spill down her cheeks.</p><p>It hurts so badly.</p><p>She wishes she had taken painkillers. She wishes she had went to the hospital. She wishes she hadn’t gone to that fucking underground café.</p><p>She wishes someone fucking cared.</p><p>Joan attempts to get up, but her arms won’t work. Her limbs feel tingly and numb. Everything is going dark again and she begins to cry harder.</p><p>She began to speak, but her tongue is like lead and the words come out heavily slurred and garbled. She’s begging for help, praying to any God to send someone to save her- an angel, a guardian, hell, Satan could send a demon and she would rather have the beast than be alone any longer.</p><p>Her prayers seemed to go unanswered…but then she hears a noise and an angel swathed in veils of gold appeared before her very eyes. Her gown is sparkling beneath the fluorescent lights, glimmering like little stars that were stolen from the night sky and used to adorn her dress. And if the cloth was the stars, then her skin was the milky way, so luscious and unblemished, contrasting perfectly with the twin pieces of sun that were her burning eyes.</p><p>Joan’s head lolled around to look at her. She blinked through a blizzard of black, fighting furiously against the raging ebony snow that threatened to bury her vision in a pitch avalanche. Every shred of skin along her scalp sang an agonized song of anguish when she attempted to get up again- her bruised brain begged her to stay lying down where it didn’t hurt as much, but her heart was demanding that she went to the angel.</p><p>Her heart was stronger than her brain, she knew it was, but then warmth spread through her hair and her elbows buckled- she’s back on the floor, seeing fake images floating around the room like a mobile made of cruel fantasies.</p><p>Joan whimpered. Her wet hair smears across the tile, painting it in a brilliant shade of crimson.</p><p>When she looks over, the angel is gone.</p><p>—————</p><p>Aragon rushed to retrieve a paper towel, wetting it until it was a mushy brown pulp in her hand before returning to the bathroom stall.</p><p>Joan appears to barely be conscious. Honestly, Aragon thought she had blacked out until she pressed the paper towel to the cut on the back of her head and she whined sharply in pain.</p><p>“Hush,” Aragon told her. She shifts the girl in her arms, propping her up a little more. The movement jars Joan to awareness- or, as aware as a girl with a gash on her noggin may be.</p><p>“Wh…wha…”</p><p>“Don’t speak.” Aragon said sternly. “Hold still for a moment. I’m going to pick you up, alright? Cleves pulled my car up, so it won’t be long.”</p><p>A string of slurred words fall from Joan’s lips. Her pupils are so big beneath the glaze coating her eyes.</p><p>Aragon gathers the girl up into her arms. She’s alarmed by how easy it is to lift her, but the music director’s weight and eating habits was the least of her concern right now.</p><p>People stared as she walked out to the parking lot. She did her best to disperse the looks with glares of her own, narrowing her eyes warningly at anyone who glanced over for just a bit too long. One of the more notable people who gawked was Jane. Aragon didn’t give her any attention.</p><p>During the car ride to the hospital, Joan seemed to gather herself up a little more. Her pupils have shrunk, but her eyes were still foggy. She was articulating and enunciating a little better, at least.</p><p>“A…Aragon,” She managed to say with some effort. “Where…-?”</p><p>“The hospital, Joan. You are <em>bleeding</em>.” Aragon said. She hadn’t meant for her voice to come out so biting, and the words nip with sharp teeth at Joan’s self esteem. She would apologize if she wasn’t so focused on speeding to he emergency room. “Something <em>you</em> failed to do.”</p><p>Joan flinched. She shrunk back against the car door, hunching her shoulders in. Lightning bolts of pain shoot down her neck when she tries to move it, rattling her spinal cord and making it throb, too. She just barely manages to bite back a moan of anguish.</p><p>“Aragon…”</p><p>“Don’t talk, Joan.” Aragon said.</p><p>The cut at the back of her head pulsates. She can feel her heartbeat throbbing in the bloody folds of the wound and she doesn’t think that’s normal. She tries to look at Aragon, see if her face was contorted with annoyance and rage, but a hammer comes down on her skull when she tries to. She just whimpers again.</p><p>Upon arriving at the hospital, Aragon parks and helps Joan inside (she had assured the queen that she could walk on her own, which was very much a lie). Aragon has the fill out the forms because Joan seemed to have forgotten if she was right or left handed and how to even properly use a pen.</p><p>Then, the waiting game began.</p><p>Joan started to tremble in exhaustion and pain after ten minutes of sitting in that clean-smelling waiting room. She’s hunched over slightly, swaying forward and backward and staring at the polished floor with those big, glossy eyes of hers. The cut on her head is like a beacon of scarlet, so bright and angry against her platinum hair. When Aragon looked at it, her own head began to hurt.</p><p>“Sit back,” Aragon pulled on the girl’s shoulder, getting her to recline against the back of the chair. “Do you need some water?”</p><p>“I don’t- think- I don’t think I can drink anything.” Joan said, having to think about what came out of her mouth. If she waited too long, the letters on her tongue would morph into something else entirely.</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>Joan nodded. The hammer slammed down once more.</p><p>“Alright.”</p><p>Ten more minutes pass. Joan’s breathing is so shallow, now, but she’s definitely fully conscious. Her eyes dart around wildly, trying to look at every little thing at once. The shaking is more prominent. A warm trail of blood drools lazily down the back of her neck.</p><p>Aragon isn’t sure why or when she took her hand, but now Joan is clinging tightly to her. She rubs the girl’s knuckles with her thumb, which seems to be the most wonderful thing in the world to her. It makes Aragon a little sad.</p><p>Finally, after half an hour, a nurse calls Joan’s name.</p><p>The smaller hand in Aragon’s tightens and she gave it a comforting squeeze. She and Joan follow the nurse down a white hallway and into an examination room. Not that much examination was necessary- it was very clear that Joan needed more than just a little antibiotic and rest.</p><p>When the doctor declared that stitches were going to have to be put in, Joan blanched, which didn’t seem possible because she was already as white as a ghost, but here they were.</p><p>“S-stitches?” Joan squeaked when the doctor left to get everything ready.</p><p>“Yes, pumpkin,” Aragon said. The silly little pet name slipped right from her lips and she wasn’t even ashamed of it. She liked the way it sounded when referring to Joan. “You need to get your head patched up, then you’ll feel so much better.”</p><p>Joan just nodded silently. She clutched tighter to Aragon’s hand.</p><p>“I-I’m scared.” She whispered.</p><p>“I know.” Aragon did- she could feel the poor thing shaking. “But you’re gonna be just fine. I’ll be right here with you.”</p><p>Another nod.</p><p>The doctor and a few nurses enter. One of them glances at Aragon as a syringe is getting prepared.</p><p>“I’m her mother.” Aragon said without a second thought.</p><p>The nurse nodded, then brandishes a razor from the tray of tools brought it. Joan flinches back, her eyes bugging a little.</p><p>“Wh-what?”</p><p>The nurse gives her a pitiful look.</p><p>“We have to shave parts of your head, dear.” She explained gently. “Hold still, alright? This won’t hurt.”</p><p>She was right- it didn’t hurt. In fact, it tickled, but, despite Joan’s slight giggles from the vibrations against her skin, she was anything but at ease. Now she was starting to feel embarrassed. How will the crew and fans react when she shows up with parts of her head fucking shaved? She can already hear the mockery echoing in her ears.</p><p>Once the layers of stained platinum white-blonde falls away, the wound is revealed. It’s a nasty little thing- probably five inches in length with a maw that’s inflamed and swollen, crusted with half-dried blood and sticky pus. Joan whines softly when tweezers are used to pluck away any remaining strands that may have been caught in the discharge.</p><p>“This is just going to numb your head, alright?” The doctor said, showing her a syringe.</p><p>“Squeeze my hand, darling.” Aragon murmured, “Squeeze my hand.”</p><p>Joan felt a pinch in her skull and whimpered softly. Almost immediately after, she feels cool numbered spread rapidly throughout her scalp until she could barely feel the intense pounding of the hammer anymore.</p><p>“Alright, Joan,” The doctor said, “We’re going to begin, now. Are you ready?”</p><p>Seeing as she didn’t have much of a choice, Joan nodded.</p><p>She felt the first prick of the needle and the way the thread slid through her flesh, but then the feeling melted away into the gentle buzzing that filled the rest of her head.</p><p>The process of stitching up her wound was…surprisingly peaceful. She sat there on the examination table like an obedient little Samoyed puppy getting its hurt ear patched up. The nurses and doctors made idle conversation, but she didn’t really pay attention to the things they were saying. All her focus was on Aragon and her hand in her own.</p><p>Had she…really said that she was her mother? Did she actually hear that correctly? Perhaps she was just saying that to stay inside…but why would she want stick around? Wouldn’t she want to get as far away from Joan as possible?</p><p>Twenty minutes later, the final thread is snipped and bandages are applied to the stitching. As her “mother”, Aragon is informed about proper care while the cut is healing and is given antibiotics that Joan would need to take. Finally, after all of that was said and done, they’re allowed to leave.</p><p>Joan thanks Aragon profusely upon arriving to her apartment complex, but then she sees Aragon unbuckling and getting out.</p><p>“Wh-what are you doing?” She stammered.</p><p>“You really think I’m going to let you be alone?” Aragon said, raising an eyebrow. “Sorry, but I don’t trust you to take care of yourself. I’m spending the night.”</p><p>Joan didn’t argue. She knew better than to challenge Catherine of Aragon, so she let the queen help her up to her apartment and over to the couch once inside. A cat came up to greet them, rubbing up against Joan’s legs lovingly and then meowing curiously at Aragon.</p><p>“And who is this?” Aragon asked.</p><p>Joan blusher shyly. “Her name is Whatever.”</p><p>Aragon raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“When I got her, I didn’t know what to name her so I asked one of the crew members and they just said, ‘Whatever.’” Joan explained, “So I went with it.”</p><p>Aragon blinked and then laughed.</p><p><em>Cutie</em>, She thought.</p><p>“I like it,” Aragon said.</p><p>Joan smiled sheepishly back at her.</p><p>“Now, what do you want for dinner?”</p><p>—————</p><p>Aragon awoke to the sound of a whimper.</p><p>Wait, no-</p><p>She hadn’t been asleep, actually, she was wide awake reading a book Cathy had recommended to her, and she was VERY invested it in (she knew her goddaughter had good taste, but not THIS GOOD). She looked up from the pages and glanced at the time displayed on the TV. It read, “<em>11:37</em>.”</p><p>Another whimper.</p><p>Aragon put in her bookmark and closed the book. She got up from the couch she was supposed to be sleeping on and walked to the master bedroom, where she found Joan silently crying into her blankets.</p><p>“Joan?” She whispered.</p><p>She saw the figure in the bed tense with a tiny sob.</p><p>“Joan, what’s wrong?”</p><p>No answer.</p><p>Aragon navigated her way over to the bed and flicked on the lap that was on the nightstand. The glow illuminated the tears etched down Joan’s cheeks and the pain twisting her features.</p><p>“Oh, sweetheart…” Aragon murmured, her heart clenching.</p><p>“It hurts,” Joan whispered. She was white-knuckling her blankets so tightly it was a wonder that the bone has yet to pop out. “I-it hurts so bad….”</p><p>As if getting to sleep wasn’t already hard enough. Now she has to deal with an intense, radiating burn all throughout her head.</p><p>“I’m going to go get the medicine,” Aragon said. She left quickly, returning just as fast with the antibiotics and an ice pack. “Can you sit up for me, pumpkin? Just for a moment.”</p><p>Joan nodded weakly and pushed herself up just enough to swallow the foul-tasting medicine. Almost instantly, she falls back down again and curls into a trembling ball.</p><p>“S-stay with me?” She begged, “Please, please stay with me.”</p><p>“Of course.” Aragon sat down on the bed and Joan, very shyly, puts her head in her lap. She smiled and teased the baby hairs on the back of her neck with fluttering fingers. “Somebody’s cuddly.” She purred.</p><p>Joan makes a muffled, “<em>mmm</em>” and buried her face against the softness of Aragon’s pajama pants. She keeps herself smothered there for a moment before raising her chin slightly.</p><p>“Everyone is gonna make fun of me…” She mumbled.</p><p>“What?” Aragon looked down at her.</p><p>“The cast,” Joan explained. “And the fans. They’re gonna make fun of me. Part of my head is bald…”</p><p>“Why do you care so much about what other people think?” Aragon asked.</p><p>“Because it hurts to know people think such horrible things about you,” Joan replied. “I’m not as confident as you are, Aragon…”</p><p>“Please, call me Catalina.” Aragon said. “And I won’t let them say a word to me. If they do, let me know. I’ll rivet them a new asshole.”</p><p>Joan giggled softly. At the same time, she felt heat rise to her cheeks.</p><p>“C-Catalina?” She said softly. She was also testing out the name and sounded nice on her tongue.</p><p>“Yes, <em>mija</em>?”</p><p>“Wh-what you said to that nurse earlier…about being my mother…”</p><p>“Ah,” Aragon nodded. “Right. I hope you didn’t mind, but I still mean what I said. I want to look after you, Joan. It must have been so long since you’ve had a mother, huh?”</p><p>A whimper bubbles to Joan’s throat and she nodded. It had been a long time, and it’s not like her own mother was ever really there for her.</p><p>A second whimper comes up, but it morphs into a tiny sob. She clutched tightly at Aragon’s pants, now openly crying.</p><p>“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” She blubbered over and over again through a haze of tears.</p><p>“Shh, baby, it’s okay. Shh…” Aragon stroked her hair, making sure to avoid the wounded part. Her other hand holds the weeping girl securely. “I’m right here, snowflake.”</p><p>Pumpkin and now snowflake? Aragon smiled to herself. She was on a roll with these adorable pet names! (Plus: Joan has whitish hair, so snowflake makes perfect sense! It was either that or snowball.)</p><p>“Mama…” Joan whimpered out without even really thinking it through. If she wasn’t in the middle of a dazed breakdown, then she might have been mortified with embarrassment.</p><p>Aragon, on the other hand, just smiled even wider. In fact, the grin seemed a little giddy.</p><p>“I’m right here,” She murmured to the girl. “I’m right here, pumpkin. You’re gonna be just fine… You must be so tired, aren’t you?”</p><p>Joan nodded feebly, tiny whimpers still bubbling up to her lips.</p><p>“Close your eyes. Try to rest. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”</p><p>“Promise?”</p><p>Aragon leaned down to press a soft kiss to Joan’s forehead.</p><p>“I promise.”</p><p>But she lied.</p><p>When morning came, Joan awoke to a daze of dizziness and pain and an empty bed. She looked around frantically, hurting her head further, and her blood ran icy cold.</p><p>Of course. Did she really expect Aragon to stay? She was probably recording the whole time and is now telling and showing the entire cast and-</p><p>There was a noise in the kitchen- a clatter of pots and the sizzling of eggs. Sock-padded feet approach the room.</p><p>The golden-swathed angel appeared in the doorway.</p><p>“Good morning, snowflake,” Aragon cooed, smiling warmly at the girl. She crosses over and gave her a gentle hug. The soft kiss pressed to her temple nearly sent Joan to whatever plane of existence this wonderful, amazing woman came from. “I hope you’re hungry.”</p>
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